


Fraxinella (Fire)

by faerymorstan



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 221B Ficlet, Female-Centric, Flowerlock, Gen, Intelligence - Freeform, Mary's Past, POV Female Character, POV Mary, POV Second Person, Trajectories, Victorian Flower Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-08
Updated: 2014-03-08
Packaged: 2018-01-14 23:43:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1283080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faerymorstan/pseuds/faerymorstan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can't help but burn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fraxinella (Fire)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aderyn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/gifts).



> for [aderyn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/aderyn/works), who makes flowerlock a joy.

Your mother says you’re born a bullet, doctor-caught, whiff of cordite in the vernix. What you tear through: underbrush, milestones, knees (denim, corduroy, skin), patience (others’, your fusillade of questions; your own, at thirteen smarter, the tests say, than anyone you know).

 _Words_.

What you can’t put them to: the place in you that’s accelerant, incendiary, would let you—you imagine—put the deserving in the crosshairs, squeeze the trigger.

You are sure you know who deserves to die.

The CIA finds you your senior year of college. Says _linguistics_. _Exceptional_.

 _Are you interested in service to your country_.

What you know later (too late): they smelled it on you, the cordite.

At thirty-five you burn away your name, drip dross (A.G.R.A _._ dies; you, corpse, can never see your mother again) on the tarmac; Mary Morstan rises from the dead, cries herself hoarse in a Heathrow bathroom ( _loo_ ) before she— _you_ take a taxi, find a salon, leave citrus-scented. Blonde.

At thirty-nine you fall in love with him (funny, fierce, a flirt; like you, in mourning), at forty with his best friend (resurrected, brilliant, abrasive; like you, in mourning). You’re Mary Watson, now; chose half your name for love.

Fire finds you.

A flash at the muzzle: _you can’t be put out, girl._

_You can’t help but burn._

**Author's Note:**

> [Victorian Flower Language.](http://www.victorianbazaar.com/meanings.html)


End file.
